Still working on Thornton King number four. The nice thing about there being time, after all, if and when its finished (35000 words at the moment) it isn’t going to go anywhere until at least the final quarter of 2010 or the Spring of 2011, and as in my current state of health I’m not fit for much else is that, if I run out of steam as it were, I can stop and have a game of spider solitaire or bridge or even pinball if I feel like it until I collect my thoughts or discover how to proceed. How's that for a long sentence? The only trouble with the bloody bridge programme I have is that my partner, that is this computer of course, has the weirdest ideas about bidding that drive me up the wall. For example, and if there is any bridge expert out there, like Omar Sherif for example, maybe he/she can explain it to me. East calls 1 club. I (south) am sitting on a nice little row of 7 clubs so I double. My partner then goes 3 hearts. Three hearts! And what does he have? Four measly hearts up to the ten and a string of diamonds to the ace and I have only two hearts, neither of them trick worthy and so go down a bundle. So why wasn’t the call 2 or 3 diamonds? Is there some kind of convention here like Backwoods with the 3 hearts call? I think maybe I’m going to have to get another partner. The computer probably feels the same way, ha ha.
Well, all things being equal and unless there is a catastrophe of seismic proportions it looks as though Chris and Douglas will be gainfully employed in very responsible categories, for the next twelve months on a 26 part television series some of which will be shot right here in Vamos.
Started to watch THE DEVIL’S WHORE yesterday evening but after twenty minutes of not having a clue as to what was going on, switched off and watched a Scorsese film instead with the fabulous Jack Nicholson, my favourite movie actor. A very gory piece but then what else do you expect from Scorsese? And at least for once you could hear every word of the dialogue. Going back to THE DEVIL’S WHORE, the reason for our not understanding was (a) a very boring young lady in the lead who has caught the American mumbles and couldn’t speak, (and she wasn’t the only one unfortunately), that is we couldn’t catch a single word of her dialogue from the very beginning and (b) why oh why, someone please tell me why does the music have to be twice the volume of the dialogue? Why will these people do this? It’s not as if the music on its own was all that memorable to begin with. I hope when the film industry is up and running in the new studios being built in Cape Town that the film makers employ some sound engineers and editors who know what they’re about. On the plus side the film is beautifully dressed, beautifully photographed and atmospheric and as far as I could tell a stickler for period detail. But we would have liked to have known what was happening, especially as all the members of the Wiercx family in the Cape are in it.